No DUP MLAs speak in defence of Jenny Palmer’s Spad allegations

Social Development minister Nelson McCausland

Sam McBride

Not a single DUP MLA spoke in defence of their party colleague Jenny Palmer’s allegations on Monday during almost three hours of Assembly debate on last week’s BBC Spotlight programme.

The Assembly was recalled from its summer recess to discuss the serious claims, many of them against the DUP, in the investigation broadcast last week.

The central witness in that programme was Mrs Palmer, a Lisburn DUP councillor, who said that she had been left distressed after being told by DUP minister Nelson McCausland’s special adviser, Stephen Brimstone, to change her vote at a key Housing Executive board meeting in favour of the contractor Red Sky.

She alleged that when she objected to what was being asked of her, Mr Brimstone told her: “The party comes first. You do what you’re told.”

In a solicitor’s letter to the BBC, Mr Brimstone denied that. He has since declined to be interviewed.

At the weekend, several DUP councillors in Lisburn said that they had been told not to speak about the issue while one, former Lisburn mayor Paul Porter, hung up on the News Letter when asked for his view.

On Monday at Stormont there was limited evidence of open support for Mrs Palmer on the DUP benches but members of other parties praised her for speaking out.

The only DUP member to refer to her by name was Health Minister Edwin Poots, who said that he had known her for a long time, and added: “I find her an honourable lady, I respect her and I hold her and her family in high regard.”

However, Mr Poots made no comment about her conversation with Mr Brimstone, instead moving on to allege that she had been “deeply concerned” about actions of the previous SDLP minister Margaret Ritchie.

Mr McCausland did not refer to Mrs Palmer by name but said that his adviser would have been “wrong” not to phone Mrs Palmer and give her “some understanding of the broader context of all this”.

He said that it had been a “short, eight-minute conversation”.

Mr McCausland said that a crucial meeting between him and the former owners of Red Sky – which Spotlight said was a breach of his ministerial code as the administrators running Red Sky at the time were not present – was not “a secretive or shady meeting”.

He said that the Housing Executive had been aware of that meeting and had contacted the administrator about it.

During frequently heated exchanges in the chamber, DUP MLA Gregory Campbell said that the BBC Spotlight programme had been “absolutely scandalous”, questioning why former SDLP social development ministers had not been interviewed.

But TUV leader Jim Allister said that Mr Brimstone had “behaved in a bully-boy fashion to a member of his own party”.

Sinn Fein’s Caitriona Ruane questioned whether any of those on the Spotlight programme from Turkington Holdings or Red Sky were DUP donors and added that there was “no place for a brown envelope culture”.

SDLP MLA Mark H Durkan said that he had no reason to doubt what Mrs Palmer said and that if it was true either Mr Brimstone or Mr McCausland had breached their respective codes of conduct.

A motion expressing concern at the allegations and calling for an inquiry into the Spotlight claims was passed by 54 votes to 34 but vetoed by the DUP which used a ‘Petition of Concern’ to stop it being approved.

The party argued that the motion was insufficiently wide, but opponents accused the party of abusing the spirit of the Petition of Concern – which was a part of the Agreement intended to protect the interests of unionism or nationalism – by tabling it in defence of the party.

At one point, the angry mood lifted and MLAs applauded when Jim Allister referred to the presence of independent unionist David McClarty who was back in the chamber after receiving treatment for cancer.

This website and its associated newspaper adheres to the Independent Press Standards Organisation's Editors' Code of Practice.
If you have a complaint about editorial content which relates to inaccuracy or intrusion, then contact the
Editor by clicking here.

If you remain dissatisfied with the response provided then you can contact the IPSO by
clicking here.

Belfast Newsletter provides news, events and sport features from the Belfast area. For the best up to date information relating to Belfast and the surrounding areas visit us at Belfast Newsletter regularly or bookmark this page.

For you to enjoy all the features of this website Belfast Newsletter requires permission to use cookies.

Find Out More ▼

What is a Cookie?

What is a Flash Cookie?

Can I opt out of receiving Cookies?

About our Cookies

Cookies are small data files which are sent to your browser (Internet Explorer, Firefox, Chrome etc) from a website you visit. They are stored on your electronic device.

This is a type of cookie which is collected by Adobe Flash media player (it is also called a Local Shared Object) - a piece of software you may already have on your electronic device to help you watch online videos and listen to podcasts.

Yes there are a number of options available, you can set your browser either to reject all cookies, to allow only "trusted" sites to set them, or to only accept them from the site you are currently on.

However, please note - if you block/delete all cookies, some features of our websites, such as remembering your login details, or the site branding for your local newspaper may not function as a result.

The types of cookies we, our ad network and technology partners use are listed below:

Revenue Science ►

A tool used by some of our advertisers to target adverts to you based on pages you have visited in the past. To opt out of this type of targeting you can visit the 'Your Online Choices' website by clicking here.

Google Ads ►

Our sites contain advertising from Google; these use cookies to ensure you get adverts relevant to you. You can tailor the type of ads you receive by visiting here or to opt out of this type of targeting you can visit the 'Your Online Choices' website by clicking here.

Digital Analytics ►

This is used to help us identify unique visitors to our websites. This data is anonymous and we cannot use this to uniquely identify individuals and their usage of the sites.

Dart for Publishers ►

This comes from our ad serving technology and is used to track how many times you have seen a particular ad on our sites, so that you don't just see one advert but an even spread. This information is not used by us for any other type of audience recording or monitoring.

ComScore ►

ComScore monitor and externally verify our site traffic data for use within the advertising industry. Any data collected is anonymous statistical data and cannot be traced back to an individual.

Local Targeting ►

Our Classified websites (Photos, Motors, Jobs and Property Today) use cookies to ensure you get the correct local newspaper branding and content when you visit them. These cookies store no personally identifiable information.

Grapeshot ►

We use Grapeshot as a contextual targeting technology, allowing us to create custom groups of stories outside out of our usual site navigation. Grapeshot stores the categories of story you have been exposed to. Their privacy policy and opt out option can be accessed here.

Subscriptions Online ►

Our partner for Newspaper subscriptions online stores data from the forms you complete in these to increase the usability of the site and enhance user experience.

Add This ►

Add This provides the social networking widget found in many of our pages. This widget gives you the tools to bookmark our websites, blog, share, tweet and email our content to a friend.